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px is probably more consistent. However, it is generally not a good idea to use pt or px for content text. I use px for text which absolutely has to be kept to a certain size, such as text in a navigation menu.

ems are, sadly, even more inconsistent across browsers. If my style sheet is for the screen, I use pixels (because they are screen units) and if it's for print, I use points (because they are print units).

There's info on the strengths/weaknesses of all the length units here.

Here's my take:

pixels are good for absolute control, but bad for people who need to adjust fonts in their browser because of seeing impairments.

em's are bad for IE3 and Nav4, but there are workarounds, including the Web Standard's Browser Upgrade Campaign and www.richinstyle.com 's cross-browser strategies discussed in its Masterclass series of CSS articles. ems are good for users with visual disabilities, and believe it or not, there are actually a good number of people out there who want to resize your fonts, so work with them, not against them

<RANT>
I thought CSS was supposed to be the savior of web designers everywhere? Instead, it appears that we now have to learn a completely different set of workarounds to get our sites looking the same in all browsers. Except, now the workarounds are more complicated than before.

When will it stop? Everytime someone comes out with a new technology (even if that tech is the best thing EVER)

1) browser manufacturers are slow to support it.
2) Because they are slow to support, people are slow to implement it
3) Return to #1.

I say lets sit down and say "These are the tech's that we want. This is how we want to implement it. These are their standards."

I love CSS and want to use it more and more, but I am so tired of hearing people say "My pages are compliant...but I had to use the following tricks to make it compliant." As far as I am concerned your page is not compliant then.

sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and sick and tired and well...you get the point...</RANT>

I empathise - the more I learn about css the more I like using it - it really solves most of my layout problems. Then you come up against support problems, generally in Netscape, and you feel like you've moved back a step again.